Solar plant planned in California desert

SAN FRANCISCO

A man views solar panels on a roof at Google headquarters in Mountain View, California, June 18, 2007. BrightSource Energy Inc, a private solar energy company, said on Thursday it filed for a construction permit from the California Energy Commission to build a 400-megawatt...

Reuters/Kimberly White

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - BrightSource Energy Inc, a
private solar energy company, said on Thursday it filed for a
construction permit from the California Energy Commission to
build a 400-megawatt solar power plant in the Mojave Desert.

The project would cover between 3,000 and 3,500 acres near
the Nevada border about 40 miles southeast of Las Vegas and use
solar thermal technology to generate electricity at two 100 MW
plants and one 200 MW plant.

The planned technology will use thousands of small mirrors
to reflect sunlight on boilers atop 300-foot-tall towers, said
Charles Ricker, a senior vice president at BrightSource. The
sunlight would heat water to produce steam to run turbines.

The technology was developed by BrightSource subsidiary Luz
II, which built power plants in the Mojave in the 1980s.

The site is on land managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land
Management and the company has applied to the agency for a
right-of-way grant.

BLM already has received right-of-way requests on more than
300,000 acres of California desert for development of about 34
large solar plants totaling 24,000 MW.

That would be about half of the electricity consumed in
California on a hot summer day.